Tangu no Sekku
by Streets of Fire
Summary: They boys of Team 7 celebrate Boy's Day in a special way. Team 7 friendship. Two Shot. COMPLETE
1. Sasuke

She had either come very early May 5th, or very VERY late May 4th. Either way, she had come and Sasuke wondered how, even with all his training and talent, he hadn't heard her arrive or leave.

Tangu no Sekku was a day to celebrate the son's of the family. When he was young, his mother and father and brother had celebrated it with him. He and his cousins had spent days hanging colorful koi streamers and paper lanterns around the Uchiha compound. At night, they raced around with matches to light the lanterns, turning the ancestral land into a capsule of light and color. Once, when Sasuke was still too small to reach the high jutting edge of the entrance gate, his older cousins had teased him and called him Shortsuke (not the most clever nickname, but when your that young, does it really matter?). As tears crept to his eyes, he had felt strong arms scoop him up. It was his brother Itachi. Placing the little boy on his shoulders, Itachi had handed him the delicate string loop that was attached to the kite. "Go ahead, _otooto_," Itachi had laughed, "Who needs long legs when you have an older brother like me?".

Sasuke shook his head, as if to shake of the memories of the past. He rubbed his eyes and padded out to his kitchen, placing the carefully wrapped gift on the wooden table. Rubbing his eyes, Sasuke went to his nearly empty fridge. _Guess I should buy some food soon._ Pulling out a half carton of milk, he popped the wax paper top into a steeple and took a long swig from it. Tasting a sour note, the Uchiha survivor peeked into the carton. _Not quite cheese yet…_ He shrugged and placed it back in the fridge.

Reluctantly, he returned to the gift. Over the years, he had received many ill conceived gifts from his fan girls. Every year messy cards, burnt cookies and stuffed animals had littered his doorstep or school desk, depending on the boldness of the giver. This gift however, had been placed right next to his sleeping head, on his Uchiha fan emblazoned pillow. This girl had some kind of backbone now.

Sasuke examined the parcel. It was obviously a box of some sort. Its paper was smooth and blue, with a thin pink ribbon wrapping around it from for directions, meeting in the middle in a bow with a koi kite charm tied in the center. Nestled next to the charm was a small, red and white fan shaped card on a shiny white background . _It would be rude to look at the present first…_ Sasuke glanced around as if someone would have seen him being so rude. Confident, he slipped the pink bow off the gift and ran his fingers under the seam where the paper overlapped on one side. Deftly slipping the box out of its papery shell, Sasuke opened the parcel and gasped.

Inside of the plain gray box, were the most vibrant, round, perfect tomatoes, still on the green stem and smelling faintly of dirt. Lovingly, Sasuke lifted the bunch out of the box and placed them on the table._ Must be the first crop of the season…_

Sasuke gingerly picked up the bunch of tomatoes and placed them in his refrigerator. Everything else looked gross and dreary next to the vibrant fruits (or vegetables?). He sighed and begrudgingly tossed the sour milk and the two lone tomatoes, both with ugly gray-green spots puckering their red skin. After cleaning out the contents of the fridge, Sasuke returned to the blue and white card that sat on the table.

Sasuke pulled the card free from the ribbon. He noticed that the fan wasn't the card at all, just a homemade gift tag. The real card was printed in her neat, swirl-y handwriting.

_Happy Tangu no Sekku, Sasuke-kun! I found this picture and thought you might like it. The tomatoes are from my mom's garden. First of the season!_

_ Love,_

_Sakura_

He flipped the picture over and let out a stifled laugh. Gently bringing it closer to his face, Sasuke couldn't help but smile at the picture. They all looked so young. Sakura had her arms thrown around her teammates' shoulders, flashing the victory sign on either hand and her tongue sticking out at the camera. Naruto was grinning like an idiot, his smile taking up his whole face. Sasuke himself would have looked, to an outsider, like he was totally unhappy. But Sasuke recognized the slight upturn in his lips and remembered how happy he had felt that day to be back home. Sasuke carried the picture over to his refrigerator and looked for a something to hang it up with. But the lump he had begun to prod was not a magnet at all, but rather a very large clump of dust. Putting the photo down on the countertop, Sasuke grabbed a paper towel and ran it under water. He wiped down the refrigerator and freezer doors, creating a clean slate for the team photo.

Locating a dust free magnet, the heir placed the picture onto the freezer door and adjusted it to a jaunty, nonchalant angle, as if it had just been placed their on a whim. Like there would be many more pictures to follow.


	2. Naruto

Naruto woke-up late that morning. Kakashi-sensei had given them the day off for Tangu no Sekku. Not like either of the boys on the squad had anyone to celebrate with and Sakura would probably enjoying the day-off with her little brothers, but what the hey, it was a nice gesture. It's the thought that counts, right?

When Naruto was young, he didn't celebrate Tangu no Sekku because their was no one their to celebrate it with. The holiday was a way to celebrate the health and childhood of sons and brothers. This required parents and siblings, something Naruto didn't have.

To his credit, Naruto didn't totally ignore Boy's Day. The traditional festival was held on the training grounds, transforming the plot of land into a bright, colorful field of light and laughter at night. On these evenings, Naruto would sit in an old, towering tree and watch the packed festival. In the throng of people, he would search the crowd for bits and pieces of his parents. A wide smile. Blue eyes. Light hair. Loud laughter. From his perch, the Kyuubi vessel would patch together his family like collage. The next morning, he would awake to find himself in the same tree, alone again, and with a sore back.

Today, he rolled over in bed, willing the sun to go away. Bright, noontime sun rays cut through his window, slicing the room in half with a long strip of gold. _I need shades or something…_ Outside, the birds sang and people chattered happily in the street. Naruto sighed and rubbed his tired eyes dejectedly. It was clear he wasn't going to sleep this awful day into oblivion. As his eyes slowly opened his eyes and adjusted to the light, a small orange package caught his eye.

"Uwaahh!" Naruto yelled, caught off guard "A present? Awesome!"

He jumped out of bed with a new found energy. He NEVER got presents. This was probably his first preset since Master Iruka bought him that bowl of ramen, and even that technically didn't count. Naruto carried the box ceremoniously into the kitchen, like he was holding the coronation crown for a prince. Placing it on the single chair that stood in front of his table, Naruto pushed the mountainous pile of scrolls, papers, training booklets and empty Insta-Ramen cups onto the floor, clearing an appropriate space for the brightly wrapped box.

Plopping the present down on the now 'clean' table, Naruto squatted so that he was on eye level with the box. It was covered in a bright, textured orange wrapping paper, tiny petal shaped bumps raised barely above the surface, creating swirls and patterns on the coarse paper. On top, there was a shiny pink bow, reflecting slivers of pink onto the walls. Attached to the bow was a koi kite shaped charm and a card shaped like a bowl of ramen, a silhouette on a shiny background.

Unsure of what the proper decorum for opening a present was, Naruto went for the card first. He found that the ramen bowl was not a card at all, but a coupon for a free meal at the Ichiraku ramen house. On the bottom of the coupon, in girly handwriting was written:

_At least get some vegetables in there too! What I giveth, I can taketh away!_

Naruto grinned as he looked at the shiny photo backing underneath the coupon. A message in the same handwriting:

_Happy Tangu no Sekku, Naruto! I'm SERIOUS about the vegetable thing. I thought you might like the photo. I have no idea when it was taken…_

_Love, Sakura _

_P.S Don't use up your present all at once ( ; ._

Naruto laughed at the message and flipped over the writing to find a picture on the back. It had obviously been taken at Ichiraku from behind the counter. In a row at the counter are the four members of Team 7, each shoveling ramen into their faces. The camera blurred the rapidly moving chopsticks, reducing them to light brown smudges. Naruto set aside the picture, carefully propping it up on a stray ramen cup. His eyes glowed as he turned his gaze to the brightly wrapped present in front of him.

Although his training as a ninja had taught him to be graceful and coordinated, he ripped the paper off the package like a kid on Christmas. Beneath the paper was a grayish box. Naruto hastily slid his thumbs underneath the front tab, popping the box open. His eyes flashed in recognition as he picked up one of the three the packages of ramen. Orange background, gold and black writing. The good stuff.

Laughing at his good fortune (and his teammate's excellent taste), Naruto jumped up to start a fresh pot of water boiling, clearing away the pots of congealing broth that cluttered the burners of his stove. Content that his breakfast was on the way, Naruto picked up the photo once again. _It needs a special place_. Naruto thought of his sparse bedroom.

The window sill above his bed was mostly bare. A framed picture of him and Master Iruka the day he graduated. A team photo propped against the wall. A delicate hand sewn doll that Hinata had given him. Naruto frowned and pulled a stray rusty thumbtack out of the window sill. Making sure he didn't knick the picture itself, Naruto tacked the photo dead center, right above his pillow. "You need friends," he said, scolding either the picture or the window sill or himself. A soft sizzling noise came from the front of the small apartment. "MY RAMEN WATER!"

A/N Meh. I liked the Sasuke chapter better. You can say it, too. Maybe its because I stopped and started on this one. I have no idea if Sakura has brothers or any other siblings for that matter. But brothers fit nicely in my story so HA. Oh, and I did a report on Japan. That's why I'm on this Japanese holiday kick. And I know that 'Narutoland' isn't Japan, but I vaguely recall a Pokemon episode with Girl's Day. So, may I reiterate, HA.


End file.
